Why wasn't my manuscript sent out for review?

When a manuscript arrives on the (virtual) desk of an I&EC Research editor, we ask ourselves, “Is this manuscript likely to be of interest to a broad applied chemistry/chemical engineering audience?” To that end, we seek to identify the research advance made by the manuscript, so that we can assess whether that contribution could potentially warrant publication in I&EC Research. If that assessment is positive, we send the manuscript for peer review. On the other hand, if that initial assessment is negative, we decline the manuscript after this editorial review process and try to do so quickly, so the authors can send the manuscript to a different journal without much loss of time. Our editors are active researchers in their fields and we have extensive experience with assessing manuscripts. Each year, we handle thousands of manuscripts and our editors have seen thousands (even tens of thousands for some) of peer reviews over the course of their tenure. We use that knowledge and experience when assessing new submissions. To do our jobs well as editors, we need to value our reviewers’ time. We cannot responsibly send manuscripts to our reviewers, who generously assess manuscripts as part of their professional service, that we are confident would not be accepted for publication after peer review. We sincerely sympathize with the disappointment that comes with having a manuscript declined after editorial review, as it happens to us as well. In an effort to reduce the frequency with which this happens to our authors, we aim to share in this Editorial some of the common reasons that manuscripts do not clear the initial hurdle of our editorial review. The objective in doing so is to help authors better understand our decision-making and to help authors improve the quality of the manuscripts submitted to I&EC Research, so that more can pass through editorial review and be sent for peer review.